Architect and Military Engineer
The son of Gerolamo Cassar, and Mattea née Cassia, Vittorio was received as a serving brother in the Order of St John, in 1587 in the langue of Provence. Brought up under his father’s formative influence, he was determined to serve the Order with the same skill and dedication.
Vittorio appears to have been an aggressive man so much so that he was imprisoned on two separate occasions, in 1593 and 1594, for crimes of violence. In 1593 he was condemned to two months imprisonment for having wounded his maternal uncle, Brandano Cassia, and in 1594 he was convicted of having used stones to hammer upon the bedroom windows of Fra Emanuele de Carnero’s residence and of beating his domestic servant. He was sentenced to six months imprisonment at Castel Sant’Angelo.
According to some documents, revealed by Prof. V. Mallia Milanes in his paper ‘In Search of Vittorio Cassar’, (in 1986), it is documented that, ‘on at least two occasions, in 1602 and in 1606, Cassar was accused at the Court of the Inquisition of having been involved in fortune-telling. On these occasions, according to these confessions, he was sought after for his reputed powers of relieving people of their state of anxiety, of reassuring them, and of reading their future’.
Charles Cassar (in Witchcraft, Sorcery, and the Inquisition) reported that ‘further in-depth analyses of the Inquisition archives have revealed more valuable information on Vittorio Cassar’s qualities, not just as the principal architect and engineer living in Malta after his father’s demise, but also ‘‘as necromancer, diviner, healer, and exorcist’’’. Cassar also managed to combine his Christian beliefs with the beliefs and practices of the Muslim world. He had access to the presence of a multitude of Muslim slaves that were annually captured in the crusading activities of the Order of St John. In August 1596 Cassar was imprisoned at Fort St Elmo by the Holy Office due to his activities as necromancer. Cassar told several members of the St Elmo garrison that two women, Calli and Sevasti, had landed him in prison and that he will have justice on his release.
In 1594 Cassar was sent by the Order to visit various towns in Italy, to study the latest most important buildings and fortifications and meet established engineers.
Cassar is first referred to as a resident engineer of the Order in September 1600. He was assigned work on two defence projects in Gozo – the modernisation of the fortifications of the Castello and the construction of Garzes tower in 1605 at Mġarr.
Architect Leonard Mahoney listed these churches as being attributed to Cassar: the churches of Sta Maria, Attard (c.1600), and Sta Maria, Birkirkara (c.1610), both of which were completed by Tommaso Dingli, Our Lady of Victory church Naxxar (c.1610), St Philip church, Ħaż-Żebbuġ (c.1599), and the church of St George, Qormi (c.1584) – but Mahoney claims that to date none of these attributions has been substantiated by documentary evidence.
Architect Michael Ellul, quoting Achille Ferres lists these churches as having been designed or as having parts of them designed by Cassar ..., the church of Sta Maria, Attard (c.1600), the church of Sta Maria, Birkirkara (c.1610) – both completed by Tumas Dingli. He also designed the old parish church of Senglea (1580), St Philip church, Ħaż-Żebbuġ (c.1599), the façade of St Augustine church, Rabat, the façade of St George’s parish church Qormi (c.1584), and the church of St Ubaldesca, Paola.
In his studies, of 1986, Victor Mallia Milanes shows that there is no evidence for the attribution to Cassar of the Old Parish Church of Birkirkara and of St Ubaldesca church of Paola. He insists that the only works known to have been designed by Cassar are: part of the fortifications of the Castello in Gozo, the new extinct Torri Garzes also in Gozo, and the Tower on Comino. On stylistic evidence, it is likely that Vittorio Cassar also designed Forts St Lucian, St Thomas, the other forts in Malta, and the building of a new curtain wall in the Cittadella, Gozo.
Cassar was back in Malta in 1604 and it is thought that he died in 1609 in Gozo where he is buried in St Barbara church in the castello.
This biography is part of the collection created by Michael Schiavone over a 30-year period. Read more about Schiavone and his initiative here.